Yup, totally. I mean Syrians were given modern Russian SAM batteries and radars and the Israeli just flew right past them and took out the missile shipments. You can't kill what you can't see unless you have exterminatus available.
With enough energy you can trigger gamma ray bursts that can wipe out a better part of a galaxy of life.
With enough energy you could kickstart a second Big Bang, why stop at -just- the galaxy? XD Of course, travel time would be a thing for this kind of destruction, it's possible whatever you're trying to destroy could keep up with the event wave. Better just to destroy what they're standing on.
Italy moved 4 F-35's to cover the Baltics as part of NATO air cover. While the number is barely a single flight it was according to the article the first that the advanced fighter is serving in immediate proximity to Russia. Also it was commented that the wings were attached with a fin or shape that magnifies the radar return in an effort to prevent Russians from figuring out from which distance they would be able to actually spot the fighter.
Lockheed's offer was also revealed now to contain up to 64 F-35A's, as FAF had hoped to get 64 fighters. There has been also discussions about how the F-35A has a longer life duration than many other planes and thus it's cost is comparably lower as it requires the whole aircraft to be replaced less often and also that fewer of them would be needed to perform the same functions as regular non-stealth fighters. Also, Lockheed's offer was revealed to contain a "major hull component" to be awarded for Finnish industry as well as the assembly and maintenance work for the hull's stealth panels. Lockheed's presentative also gave a jab at Boeing and Saab by noting that "each of the fighters (F-35A) can always fly all the missions designated to them thanks to simplified maintenance schedules and logistics that are enabled by supporting only one plane type. This would be very different if our offer for instance had 50 planes of one type and 14 of another". Boeing offered 50 F-18E's and 14 Growlers, Saab offered Gripen E's and GlobalEye craft - in both cases requiring two types of planes to provide the capabilities that are according to Lockheed achievable with the single type. Worse yet for Saab, they offered only 2 GlobalEye aircraft to support the Gripen E's which means that a huge part of the critical surveillance and intelligence puzzle rests literally on two aircraft. Even having one undergo even maintenance can significantly reduce the operational capabilities of the entire FAF, nevermind sabotage or so. All in all the F-35A looks like a very tempting package with it's AIM-120 C8's and JSM missiles. On that matter Lockheed noted that F-35A requires less missiles because it can with it's stealth, EW capabilities and situational awareness it can get so much closer and wastes less missiles. This is well confirmed by modern air warfare theory and practical experiences showing that it can indeed take several missiles to score a single hit on the enemy, especially if the enemy is aware of your presence.
I think normally those aircraft (the airborne early warning system ones) usually work in groups of 4. 1 in the air 1 on standby and the other 2 on downtime/maintenance, and the 2 pairs rotate. Or at least that is how the E-2 Hawkeyes operate. Every carrier has 4 aboard. I wonder if a part of the F-35 deal is also an "under the table" (still legal and not strictly a part of the fighter program) is "we''ll also give you a discount on AIM-160 and 260 both of which Lockheed is developing. The 160 is one of the ones that's half the size of 120 but outranges it (and I think is more maneuverable). The 260 apparently outranges EVERYTHING including the meteor. Well anything that wouldn't be carried by a bomber. I wouldn't be surprised if Finland ended up with some other Early warning aircraft to complement whatever they choose. They don't even need a jet powered one. That and the E-2's radar seems far better than what is known about the Globaleye.
The F-35 can be used as early warning aircraft. Chances are the enemy won't even know where they are, except for some rough estimate that some are in the air that is achieved with the massive ground based radars. At the same time those radars too will have a hard time dealing with signature masking, jamming etc. And as far as the under the table offers go, Americans have no short supply of them. Better and more satellite intelligence, etc. and the massive support structure that the Americans have. For the F-18 the support included a 24/7 service with a test pilot sitting in a simulator - they'd reproduce whatever was going on and device a best course of action. If I remember correctly. Truly, Sweden etc. cannot pass a note in some cabinet that says "they started 30 minutes ago moving such and such squadrons near your border, tank parks are being emptied".
So the only way an aircraft like the F-35 or F-22 stays invisible is by not having its radar actively searching. It can passively search but not to the same distance. To act as an AEW it would have to be actively scanning, which other radars, whether from ground or air, can see/track if they were actively scanning also. The enemy still might not be able to lock onto the aircraft itself, but the position of it would be given away, and could be predicted/tracked. If the enemy is carrying an anti-radiation missile it could follow the signal all they way back to the F-35/22. That is part of the reason why the US bought the F-15EX. They can have a flight of the F-15s actively scanning and a flight of F-35/22s behind/beside/above/in front undetected. The F-15EX can share all of its targeting/radar data with the stealth aircraft, which allows the stealth aircraft to lock on and fire without ever having to turn on their radars and reveal their position. Or they can do the opposite with the stealth planes passively scanning several miles in front of the non-stealth planes, and passing all the targeting data to the non-stealth aircraft, who can then lock on and fire as soon as the enemy is in ideal missile range, but before they ever get close to the enemies range. Upgraded AWACs can do this as well. The F-15EX also carries a lot more fuel and weaponry than the stealth aircraft. There's more reasons to have a mix of stealth and non-stealth aircraft working together but I can really go into it on here. Ideally, enemy ground based radars and ground based air defenses are taken out with cruise missiles hours or days before friendly planes are in range. Then the air superiority fighters roll in and clear the skies, while escorting dedicated jamming and ground attack aircraft who mop up anything left/missed by the cruise missiles. I might know a thing or two from my previous job as an "analyst" in the usaf.
And I'm pretty sure the E-2's radar far outclasses the F-35 and 22. In range and capability. With Finland being not very wide I would think time in the air is more important than speed for an AWAC.
Currently our primar peace time detection comes from the powerful ground radars and the F-18's tend to fly a lot without radiation. And if they use their radars then it's probably one plane at a time or so with datalinks. In any war scenario the Russians will blow up all those static radars with massive cruise missile strikes, while also trying to take out our airfields and field bases. Cruise missiles are just one of the reasons why we have a lot of SPAAG systems and why the FAF uses dispersed field bases, some of which have bedrock shelters and others are just unassuming stretches of road. And after the main radars are gone it's all up to pop-up radars, 'sensory based air surveillance crews' and other methods to get a rough situational awareness and a better idea when and where it is worth the risk to turn on a mobile radar for a glimpse. So they can't take out our air defenses with cruise missiles with the mobile AA units constantly moving around and heavily defended against special forces. That means that when the ground attack swarm would come we'd have a ton of AA ability still left as well as most of our fighters. The risk of losing too many advanced craft would be huge for the Russians so they would not launch an all out attack for it could cost them casualties that would be beyond their capabilities to replenish - and they have one massive territory to cover with many less than friendly neighbors. If they lose too many advanced fighters then this can risk their strategic capabilities too. So our doctrine never was to actually win a war against Russia - it is to drag them down enough with us so that they would be severely weakened which would more or less leave them exposed.
We don't fly over hostile territory so we can utilize stuff like sensory based air surveillance. A friend is trained as one of those. Basically sitting in the middle of forest with landline and calling everything he sees and hears. We also bought a ton of man portable stingers since we're a foresty country fighting defensively. Then we got those painter crane lifts that are dragged with a quad, so one quad has a few stingers and another one has a crane that elevates the shooter to tree top level where he has great view while being impossible to detect from the air. Here being used in practice without trees around for safety but in war situation he'd be surrounded by tall trees.
Germany has now approved FCAS - Future Combat Air System project, 4 billion € for the design phase. Together with Spain and France they'll spend at least 12 billion on the design phase alone. The project itself will begin in earnest in 2027. This may mean that the future system will replace Rafale and Eurofighter, which will thus not appear to be as attractive for purchase. Sweden on the other hand joined the British on their new Tempest project which may have impact on their Gripen programme.
I believe the FCAS is for a 6th gen aircraft. There is ANOTHER FCAS (unless they calle it another name) for a 6th generation fighter o replace the eurofighter (so 2 aircraft to replace it depending on country) that is made up of the U.K., Italy and Sweden. Japan and India were invited to that one but I don't know if they are partners in it yet. So I think they will work together on parts (design mostly, maybe some shared parts but there will end up being two seperate aircraft. The British have already announced the name for theirs (Tempest) and I think have a demonstrator already. I don't think it is supposed to be "ready/deployable" till 2035 at the earliest.
Yup, Tempest is separate one from Germany's, France's and Spain's FCAS but that project doesn't have a demonstrator that I'm aware of.
Probably more of a general airframe one. Pretty much just an airframe model of the Tempest. Probably can't fly or even have any internal. Basically and F-22/35 shape.
I hope they put in a tail wing that is higher than on a F-35, the F-35 tail is too shallow for optimal stealth configuration - it works better on the older larger stealth bombers. I wonder if F-22 also suffers from the same issue a little bit. I mean it's not a big issue but - while at it? Then again I suppose they considered it 20 years ago and have talked about it to exhaustion and there are a ton of reasons for making these types of fighters. Also everyone in West is going for the 'local asset commander' vision for future air war, the pilot and his plane while fully armed and equipped are more about controlling his own squadron of drones to minimize the risk to the pilot who is merely close enough to the drones that he can use direct narrow beam comms for both issuing commands and to receive recon etc. data and plan out his execution of whatever mission he has or even change mission as he can since he's a human and can make that kind of tactical decisions while the automation tends to focus on things like control, flight and dividing the attack vectors among themselves to maximize success. With the human deciding how many assets are held in reserves and what is being committed and when.
I wouldn't be surprised if tail height on the F-35 was dictated by it being a joint strike fighter. Specifically navy carrier hangar height. Never mind. Because the F-18 has a little more than 1 foot in height on the F-35. 16 feet for F-18, 14.7 for F-35C (tallest one). Unless that is not counting landing gear.
